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Arctic Federation
, , , |demonym = Arctic |government_type = |leader_title1 = Prime Minister |leader_name1 = |leader_title2 = Deputy Prime Minister |leader_name2 = |legislature = Arctic Senate |sovereignty_type = Independent State |established_event1 = Declaration of Arctic Independence |established_date1 = 2009 |area_km2 = 6,087,825 |area_sq_mi = 2,350,552 |area_rank = 6th |population_estimate = 164,233 |population_estimate_rank = 194th |population_estimate_year = 2011 |population_density_km2 = 0.027 |population_density_sq_mi = 0.070 |population_density_rank = 242nd |currency = Dollar |currency_code = AFD |cctld = .fd }} The Federated States of Arctic North America, commonly referred to as the Arctic Federation, is a located in the region of . The Arctic Federation consists of three former Canadian Territories, and the former Danish possession of Greenland. It shares land borders with to the west and to the south. Its vast areas of near-inhospitable frozen tundra result in the most disparate population of any country in the world. It comprises of four constituent States, which all seceded peacefully from their parent countries in 2009. History (NB: Most of this content is from various Wikipedia articles. It's just easier.) Although the nation itself only dates back to 2009, its diverse range of indigenous peoples date back up to 5,000 years. History of Denendeh (Northwest Territories) The Northwest Territories, a portion of the old North-West Territory, entered the Canadian Confederation July 15, 1870, but the current borders were formed April 1, 1999, when the territory was subdivided to create Nunavut to the east, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act. While Nunavut is mostly Arctic tundra, the Northwest Territories has a slightly warmer climate and is mostly boreal forest (taiga), although portions of the territory lie north of the tree line, and its most northern regions form part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. History of Greenland The history of Greenland is a history of life under extreme Arctic conditions: currently, an ice cap covers about 80 percent of the island, restricting human activity largely to the coasts. The first humans are thought to have arrived in Greenland around 2500 BC. Their descendants apparently died out and were succeeded by several other groups migrating from continental North America. There is no evidence that Greenland was known to Europeans until the 10th century, when Icelandic Vikings settled on its southwestern coast, which seems to have been uninhabited when they arrived. The ancestors of the Inuit Greenlanders who live there today appear to have migrated there later, around 1200 AD, from northwestern Greenland. While the Inuit survived in the icy world of the Little Ice Age, the early Norse settlements along the southwestern coast disappeared, leaving the Inuit as the only inhabitants of the island for several centuries. During this time, Denmark-Norway, apparently believing the Norse settlements had survived, continued to claim sovereignty over the island despite the lack of any contact between the Norse Greenlanders and their Scandinavian brethren. In 1721, aspiring to become a colonial power, Denmark-Norway sent a missionary expedition to Greenland with the stated aim of reinstating Christianity among descendants of the Norse Greenlanders who may have reverted to paganism. When the missionaries found no descendants of the Norse Greenlanders, they baptized the Inuit Greenlanders they found living there instead. Denmark-Norway then developed trading colonies along the coast and imposed a trade monopoly and other colonial privileges on the area. During World War II, when Germany invaded Denmark, Greenlanders became socially and economically less connected to Denmark and more connected to the United States and Canada.1 After the war, Denmark resumed control of Greenland and in 1953, converted its status from colony to overseas amt (county). Although Greenland is still a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it has enjoyed home rule since 1979. In 1985, the island became the only territory to leave the European Union, which it had joined as a part of Denmark in 1973; the Faroes had never joined. History of Nunavut The region now known as Nunavut has supported a continuous population for approximately 4000 years. Most historians also identify the coast of Baffin Island with the Helluland described in Norse sagas, so it is possible that the inhabitants of the region had occasional contact with Norse sailors. The written historical accounts of Nunavut begin in 1576, with an account by an English explorer. Martin Frobisher, while leading an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, thought he had discovered gold ore around the body of water now known as Frobisher Bay on the coast of Baffin Island. The ore turned out to be worthless, but Frobisher made the first recorded European contact with the Inuit. Other explorers in search of the elusive Northwest Passage followed in the 17th century, including Henry Hudson, William Baffin and Robert Bylot. Leading up to the 1970s, there was some discussion of splitting the Northwest Territories into two separate jurisdictions in order to better reflect the demographic character of the territory. In 1966, a public commission of inquiry on Northwest Territories government reported, recommending against division of the Northwest Territories at the time. In 1976 as part of the land claims negotiations between the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (then called the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) and the federal government, the division of the Northwest Territories was discussed. On April 14, 1982, a plebiscite on division was held throughout the Northwest Territories with a majority of the residents voting in favour and the federal government gave a conditional agreement seven months later. The land claims agreement was decided in September 1992 and ratified by nearly 85% of the voters in Nunavut in a referendum. On July 9, 1993, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act and the Nunavut Act were passed by the Canadian Parliament, and the transition was completed on April 1, 1999. History of Yukon Long before the arrival of Europeans, central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, and the area escaped glaciation. The volcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in the U.S. state of Alaska blanketed southern Yukon with a layer of ash which can still be seen along the Klondike Highway and forms part of the oral tradition of First Nations peoples in Yukon and further south. Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks. European incursions into the area only began early in the 19th century with the fur trade, followed by missionaries and the Western Union Telegraph Expedition. By the 1870s and 1880s gold miners began to arrive. This drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold rush led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories and the formation of the separate Yukon Territory in 1898. Sites of archeological significance in Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human occupation in North America. The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon. Costituent States Fifth State Since the establishment of the Arctic Federation as an independent nation state, there have been numerous campaigns to add a fifth constituent state to the Federation. The most notable proposal was for Nunavik to join as a fifth state, and it is expected to join the Federation in 2016 following negotiations with Quebec. Further Reading Category: Arctic Federation